The Bank Holiday Murders by Tom Wescott (2014)

[MrBarnett]

What 'threat' do I pose to you or anyone else? I suppose you're some sort of martyr for 'taking me on'? Most of the people reading this thread have read my book and consider it quite sensible and well-researched. Nobody is required or even encouraged to agree with all my conclusions, where I even offer firm conclusions. But you're coming off a bit like a zealot, or are you not aware?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Tom,

Have you realised that you totally misread my comment? You haven't mentioned it.

Is that because you merely skim my posts because I'm a newbie and a zealot?

If so, that's fine. I have no appetite for tit for tat insults, but I will continue to post my concerns about your conclusions until I get bored it closed down by admin or peer opinion.

Gary.

[GUT]

So for some reason you want to have the thread closed down.

Nice

[MrBarnett]

That pretty much says it all, doesn't it. Perhaps you should put this vast knowledge in a book so some nut could follow you around a message board attacking it.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

There you go again with the personal stuff: I'm a nut because I disagree with your conclusions.

You say it's suspicious that three women braved the East end streets at 5 in the morning.

I say it's not. I have as much research at my finger tips as you and in addition personal knowledge that leads me to believe your interpretation is wrong.

Now if your errors of interpretation, as I see them, were random mistakes I wouldn't bother to point them out. But they seem to trend in the same direction, towards some grand conspiracy. And that concerns me.

If that makes me a zealot, then that's what I am.

Gary.

[MrBarnett]

No, GUT. I want to be able to raise my nitpicking points without personal insults.

If admin feel that I am the one who initiates the personal stuff, they can close ME down or give me a wrap on the knuckles.

You seem to me someone who has a level head on his shoulders, and also who has considerable legal lnowledge.

Perhaps you can tell me whether the fact that someone's sister has a similar name to someone who shared a room with someone involved in a crime makes them a person of interest.

A simple honest yes or no will do.

Gary

[GUT]

No, GUT. I want to be able to raise my nitpicking points without personal insults.

If admin feel that I am the one who initiates the personal stuff, they can close ME down or give me a wrap on the knuckles.

You seem to me someone who has a level head on his shoulders, and also who has considerable legal lnowledge.

Perhaps you can tell me whether the fact that someone's sister has a similar name to someone who shared a room with someone involved in a crime makes them a person of interest.

A simple honest yes or no will do.

Gary

Short answer maybe.

[Tom_Wescott]

I will continue to post my concerns about your conclusions until I get bored it closed down by admin or peer opinion.

Just in case anyone missed it. We have a troll and a spammer, ladies and gentleman.

I don't recall stating that you knew of these facts before you wrote your book.

You stated I 'cheated' by withholding information in my book. Which of course I didn't.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Fisherman]

Tom,

The sand reference was made in a subsequent post. You are happy to accuse Fisherman of cheating for not mentioning a press report that contradicts his views on blood flow.
Gary.

Just saw this. I do hope that Tom and you have read my answer to that particular criticism? There never was any leaving out of any relevant material; an Echo article of the 3:rd of September clearly lays down that Mizen saw the blood running when he first came to Bucks Row and found Neil there:

Witness asked him what was the matter, and Cross replied, "A policeman wants you; there is a woman lying there." Witness went there, and saw Constable Neil, who sent him to the station for the ambulance.

The Coroner - Was there anyone else there then? - No one at all, Sir. There was blood running from the throat towards the gutter.
(The Echo, Sep 3)

This tells us that the papers that seemingly reported about Mizen finding Nichols bleeding half an hour after she had been cut ( at the very least) were misrepresentations, led on by the order in which Mizen said what he said. The Echo, however, clarifies the picture - and tells us how the others managed to get it wrong to boot. So Toms notion that I had withheld evidence was groundless from start to finish.

In all honesty, I donīt think Tom said outright that I had withheld evidence - he asked whether this was so. There was - sadly - another poster who accused me of dishonesty, but that should not reflect on Tom.

The best,
Fisherman

[Scott Nelson]

Just in case anyone missed it. We have a troll and a spammer, ladies and gentleman.

I hope it's not me.

[Tom_Wescott]

Just saw this. I do hope that Tom and you have read my answer to that particular criticism? There never was any leaving out of any relevant material; an Echo article of the 3:rd of September clearly lays down that Mizen saw the blood running when he first came to Bucks Row and found Neil there:

Witness asked him what was the matter, and Cross replied, "A policeman wants you; there is a woman lying there." Witness went there, and saw Constable Neil, who sent him to the station for the ambulance.

The Coroner - Was there anyone else there then? - No one at all, Sir. There was blood running from the throat towards the gutter.
(The Echo, Sep 3)

This tells us that the papers that seemingly reported about Mizen finding Nichols bleeding half an hour after she had been cut ( at the very least) were misrepresentations, led on by the order in which Mizen said what he said. The Echo, however, clarifies the picture - and tells us how the others managed to get it wrong to boot. So Toms notion that I had withheld evidence was groundless from start to finish.

In all honesty, I donīt think Tom said outright that I had withheld evidence - he asked whether this was so. There was - sadly - another poster who accused me of dishonesty, but that should not reflect on Tom.

The best,
Fisherman

Hi Fish, I did see your response some time later and can understand your point. Also, I appreciate the fact that you have not published an essay or book on the blood evidence. However, you HAVE posted lengthy and detailed posts on the subject and I find it unfortunate that you never tackled the issue of the Star report where Mizen describes the blood as 'congealed'. Such a word can cast serious doubt on a theory that the blood was 'fresh' and still running or at least can cause confusion to the reader. So I was surprised when I learned about the 'congealed' comment from a non-Lechmere poster.

However, this is different from what Barnett is claiming regarding me. He's suggesting I withheld some piece of evidence which even now I'm not aware of.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[RockySullivan]

I hope it's not me.

it's not fair to call MrB a spammer tom,
Electronic spamming is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited messages (spam), especially advertising

Ha ha

[Tom_Wescott]

it's not fair to call MrB a spammer tom,
Electronic spamming is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited messages (spam), especially advertising

Ha ha

I hope I haven't inadvertently offending any spammers. We'll stick with troll then.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Fisherman]

Hi Fish, I did see your response some time later and can understand your point. Also, I appreciate the fact that you have not published an essay or book on the blood evidence. However, you HAVE posted lengthy and detailed posts on the subject and I find it unfortunate that you never tackled the issue of the Star report where Mizen describes the blood as 'congealed'. Such a word can cast serious doubt on a theory that the blood was 'fresh' and still running or at least can cause confusion to the reader. So I was surprised when I learned about the 'congealed' comment from a non-Lechmere poster.

However, this is different from what Barnett is claiming regarding me. He's suggesting I withheld some piece of evidence which even now I'm not aware of.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

I am of the opinion that it would only confuse matters to first say "look, this points to B" and then go "But this tells us that A applies".

I was very aware of what applied, and I had the answer at hand when the question arose.
If it had never surfaced, the correct picture would have prevailed anyway.

In a sense, I am a bit baffled about how people with a genuine interest and reasonable knowledge could have missed out on the true picture of it all. Itīs not as if it is hidden or something like that. The press reports are all available to us on these very boards, and I for one would not want to call a fellow posterīs reliablilty into question before I checked ALL of the material.

Anyway, itīs water under the bridge now, and I donīt wanīt it to resurface as an unsettled matter again. In that respect, I think you may have a point; instead of checking out if a question has been answered, it seems that posters sometimes instead work from the presumption that is has not been. And that is unfortunate, as are all misunderstandings.

In that vein (excuse the pun), I would like to point out that the Star report does not say that the blood was congealed. If it had, we would be having another type of dicussion. If the blood had been congealed, then Lechmere would be a somewhat less useful bid for the killerīs role. But what the Star says is that Mizen claimed that: "There was only one pool; it was somewhat congealed." So the blood was NOT fully congealed, but it was beginning to get congealed. And congealing is something that starts out almost immediately after a vessel has been opened up. It only becomes visible to the human eye after around three minutes under normal circumstances, and then it will take another four minutes before it is complete. After that, the blood will get more solid with time.

These are of course approximations, and deviations will be there in many cases. But the gist of the matter is that if Mizen was in place five or six minutes, or thereabouts, after Nichols was cut, then the blood should arguably still be in the process of congealing. In other words, it would resonably be somewhat congealed, just like Mizen says.

All the best,
Fisherman

[MrBarnett]

I hope it's not me.

No, I think it's me. Apparently I'm a nutter, a troll, a zealot, a spammer, and a rosy-eyed Brit because I won't swallow Tom's Grand conspiracy theory.

Who would have expected such a wide vocabulary of insults from a man who until recently didn't know the meaning of 'glib' or 'ironic' ? (Really, see JTRF).

I wonder how many posts aimed at an implausible theory prove ones insanity. Beware ye Lechmere or Hutch nay-sayers, the men in white coats must be on their way. (Or is it just TBHM deniers who are so stigmatised?)

I have no personal grudge against the author. Indeed I wish him well with his Grand confection. Just one last word of advice, though : he should remember that many of his readers have internet access and can check out his 'facts'.

It can't be easy for a poor conspiracy theorist trying to convince his readers of his evil genius's involvement in the WM based on the unavailability of sword sticks to the hoi polloi when some daft 'aporth has posted this kind of thing:






Life must have been so much easier for Stephen Knight.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Mr. Barnett, you're grasping at straws now, aren't you? You're posting 1877 news reports about sword sticks to argue...what, that there were swords sticks in 1888? I said as much in my book, didn't I? I noted how I found four separate incidents involving swords sticks around the time of the Emma Smith murder alone. That's hardly stating that such items were not available, is it? Quite the opposite. However I would argue that a lodging house pauper is unlikely to have one or remain in possession of it for very long if he did. What's strange to me is that while attempting to belittle me you seem to be agreeing with my observation that Martha Tabram was murdered with a sword stick.

I'm sure those reading this thread who have read my book (and indeed, even those who haven't) will take with a grain of salt your assurance that you have no 'personal grudge' against me.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Tom_Wescott]

As Rocky and others have hit on, the main part of my book centers around Pearly Poll and some observations I made regarding the early Whitechapel murders, which I consider to be those of Emily Horsnell, Emma Smith, and Martha Tabram. I became intrigued with the idea that these three murders were related, along with (possibly) the serious attack upon Margaret Hames, which she survived.

Separately, I became intrigued with Pearly Poll when I realized during my research that she was the first to correctly identify Martha Tabram, albeit she did so as 'Emma', a lodger at 19 George Street. It turned out this was indeed the name Martha went by at this house. Following the release of my book, Stewart Evans observed and pointed out that Pearly Poll actually went to the police, looked at the body, and went away without making a statement as to her identity, but then came back the next day with the well known story of their last night out with the two soldiers. This story could not be corroborated by the police and appears to have originated from a flawed press report. The question that came to my mind is - how did Pearly Poll know that the unnamed woman who'd been murdered was Tabram and why did she make up a story about it? Why put herself to such risk with the police? That forced me to look at Pearly Poll with a degree of suspicion. A closer look cast serious doubt on her claim to having been friends with Tabram for the past four or five months as she claimed. It seemed to me that Inspector Reid shared these doubts.

One of the items I focus on that I (and apparently many readers) consider significant is the fact that Pearly Poll lived with or next door to six consecutive murder or assault victims:

Nov. 1887 - Emily Horsnell, resident of 19 George Street, murdered
Dec. 1887 - Margaret Hames, resident of 18 George Street, assaulted
April 1888 - Emma Smith, resident of 18 George Street, murdered
Aug. 1888 - Martha Tabram, resident of 19 George Street, murdered

Following the murder of Tabram, Pearly Poll moves to 35 Dorset Street. I was the first to observe, in the book, that Polly Nichols likewise moved to this house prior to her death and on the night of her murder was anxious to escape it. She's then murdered. Annie Chapman, also a resident of 35 Dorset Street, was the next to be murdered. So you then have:

Sep. 1888 - Polly Nichols, resident of 35 Dorset Street, murdered
Sep. 1888 - Annie Chapman, resident of 35 Dorset Street, murdered

I find it deeply intriguing that the woman who knew Martha Tabram was murdered when no one else did and prepared a fictitious story before talking with police could be so easily associated with no less than six women murdered or assaulted within such a short time frame. Had she been a man, she'd make a terrific prime suspect. But I don't believe she was the killer. I do speculate based on the above (and more) that she knew who the killer(s) was.

More later.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott